Classic Rock Features

The only music you'll need this Christmas Day is this brilliant, ludicrous playlist from The Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins

It may well be Chreeeeesssstttmaaaaaaasssssss, but Slade, like puppies, are an all-year proposition

With their ninth studio album In Murmuration, Finnish rockers Von Hertzen Brothers have replaced their erstwhile prog epics for a more honest approach to songwriting reflecting their personal lives

1981’s High ’N’ Dry was the record that introduced Def Leppard to America – and changed things for ever

When Adrian Belew failed to persuade the 80s line-up to reunite, he had to come up with another way of bringing that decade’s three albums back to life – and he did it

There’s a raft of Yuletide tunes by the Seattle titans to see you through the festive period

Including Black Spiders, Nate Bergman, Ally Venable and five other bearers of festive rock'n'roll gifts

Bow down before Manowar’s false metal-slaying third album, 1984’s Hail To England

Fame, death and resurrection – X Japan’s Yoshiki looks back on his band’s unique journey

How a song about the “hardscrabble lives” of the fledgling rockers became a timeless rock anthem

The drugs really were working for Aerosmith on 1976’s classic Rocks album

It’s Zakk Wylde’s world - we just live in it

Drugs, denim and 12 bar boogie – the story of one of the UK’s most successful rock bands 

The ex-White Stripes man and guitar magus on the essential ingredients he thinks it takes to become a six-string master

Metal’s all-time greatest concept album? Operation: Mindcrime could be it

Jamming with Hendrix, partying with The Who, getting hit on by David Bowie’s wife – The God Of Hellfire has done it all and more

The Fleetwood Mac icon has a contemporary pop favourite but isn’t happy about all the cussing

Next year, Joe Bonamassa plays the music of the late, great Irish guitarist Rory Gallagher at three special shows in Cork.

Life in Deep Purple has never been dull